'Harpermania' draws students back to WKU basketball games

The decision to hire Ray Harper as Western Kentucky's head basketball coach became easier for athletic director Ross Bjork when his year-old son started waving around a cardboard cutout of Harper's face on a stick over the last six weeks.

"The Harper heads — that's pretty creative," Bjork said Monday as he introduced the former WKU assistant and interim head coach officially to an estimated 1,100 fans at E.A. Diddle Arena. "The avalanche of sort did not go unnoticed."

Cardboard cutouts, larger crowds and renewed support — it's all part of "Harpermania," which has brought back both WKU's core fanbase and students since the school fired former coach Ken McDonald on Jan. 6.

Even though WKU's enrollment tops 21,000 and student admission is free, 261 students attended WKU's Dec. 4 game against Bowling Green State, and 194 showed up Dec. 17 when the Hilltoppers hosted Furman. Those two games were WKU's last at home before students left for winter break — also the last two games most of them saw before McDonald's firing.

Compare that to the 950 who saw the Hilltoppers beat South Alabama on Feb. 4 and the 1,018 at WKU's Feb. 16 win over Florida Atlantic — games since school returned to session — and sophomore Adam Almon has noticed a distinct difference in his audience.

"The students have been going buck wild," said Almon, a trumpet player in WKU's pep band. "It's more fun to play for more of a focused crowd."

Although WKU is 4-7 since Harper was named interim coach, the school inked him to a four-year, $375,000 contract plus incentives after conducting a national search. Bjork declined to disclose how many candidates were involved and who was interviewed, but he did say "unequivocally this job was coveted" until it was filled.

WKU's second-year athletic dirctor broke the news Sunday afternoon on the same platform he's used to promote ticket sales, clamor for a football bowl game and reach fans directly in his first two years on the job — to his 2,000-plus Twitter followers.

Bjork tweeted Sunday afternoon, "#HilltopperNation welcome your new #WKU basketball coach. Congrats Coach Harper!" with a photo of he and Harper wearing serious expressions but with their arms around one another.

So ended a windy road to Harper becoming WKU's coach — one that started when the nearby Greenville, Ky., native suited up as a fan in red the day the Hilltoppers played Kentucky in the 1971 NCAA Tournament.

"Thank goodness the good guys won that day," Harper said with a smile.

An older Harper had hoped to play at WKU, but the school told him he wasn't good enough. He ended up at Texas and finished his career at Kentucky Wesleyan College, where Harper then won two Division II championships and complied six straight 30-win seasons as the head coach.

Now Harper's heading WKU's program, and his mission is simple: Win out and make the NCAA Tournament, where the Hilltoppers haven't gone in two seasons.

"I don't have a five-year plan. I don't have a three-year plan," he said. "I have a now plan, and that plan is to win."

The Diddle Arena crowd cheered fervently following those remarks — a sound that's become commonplace at WKU amid Harpermania.

Jonathan Lintner is a Spring 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent. Learn more about him here.

This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.